How to Clean Hardwood Floors (And How Not To!)

Ever since our hardwood floor refinishing project, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how I clean our hardwood floors. They were followed with questions such as whether it’s ok to use vinegar to clean your hardwoods and if steam mops were safe to use and honestly… I wasn’t sure of all the answers! So I delved into reading everything I could find on how to clean hardwood floors with a focus on information from experts such as the National Wood Flooring Association and the World Floor Covering Association.

Today I’m sharing everything you need to know about how to clean hardwood floors and also how not to! And I’m sharing the hardwood cleaning tools & products that will help you get the job done.

This post focuses on general recommendations for sealed hardwood floors that don’t have a waxed or oiled finish. It’s always a good idea to double check cleaning recommendations with your flooring installer and/or manufacturer to ensure that you’re using appropriate cleaners for your specific floor, including nothing that would void any warranty you may have. And with that… let’s get to it! (post includes commissionable links; for more information, see my disclosure statement {here})

Routine Hardwood Floor Cleaning

Dirt and debris left on your hardwood floors wear down your floor’s surface over time. Quick daily clean-ups (or every few days depending upon how dirty your house gets and what you have time for 😊) with a broom or vacuum will go a long way to extending the life of your floor! And I’m not talking about spending 45 minutes thoroughly vacuuming all of the hardwoods in your house every day. I’m talking about a quick 5 minute clean to hit the dirt hot spots (for me that’s our laundry room that we enter the house through & our kitchen) and anywhere else you’ve noticed debris on your hardwoods.

What’s the best tool to use for routine cleaning? Sticking with the basics & using a soft bristled broom and dustpan totally works. Another option is to clean with a microfiber dust mop like {this one} that uses machine washable, reusable microfiber cloths. I used a similar one for routine cleanings in our previous home where I was spoiled by having {this Sweepovac vacuum} built into the toekick of our kitchen island that I swept any larger debris into:

And, of course, you could use a vacuum but be sure to turn off the beater bar since it might scratch the finish of wood flooring. A vacuum with soft rollers is best. In our current home, for quick clean-ups I use {this Dyson Omni-Glide} which I LOVE! It’s lightweight, easy to maneuver, has great suction, and has fluffy roller heads that are hardwood-safe:

As an added plus, it comes with several attachments that are great for cleaning hard to reach areas:

I also have the Dyson v15 Detect vacuum that I use with the fluffy roller head attachment when cleaning my hardwoods. It has a light that illuminates hidden dust that I absolutely love!

Deep Hardwood Floor Cleaning

Even if you dry mop or vacuum every day, you’ll still get a build-up of dirt on your hardwood floors over time. To clean off this layer of grime, you’ll want to regularly damp mop your hardwoods. The key is damp mopping, not wet mopping because you never want to let water sit on your hardwoods. Of course you’ll want to do a thorough vacuuming job first to remove any dirt and debris on the surface of your hardwoods.

So what’s the best cleaner to use for damp mopping? A water-based pH balanced cleaner that’s specifically made for hardwood floors. The reason pH balance is important is because cleaners that are too acidic can damage the finish on your hardwood floors. Cleaners specifically made for hardwoods are preferred over general cleaners because they’re made to dry fast – sitting water & other liquids are the enemy of hardwoods.

It’s also fine to just use water most of the time to damp mop your hardwoods but you should still occasionally use a hardwood floor cleaner to break down some of the grime that water alone can’t.

My preferred water-based pH neutral hardwood floor cleaning solution is Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. It comes premixed so can be sprayed directly on the floor followed by using a mop or microfiber pad to clean with no need for rinsing.

If you want a concentrated cleaning solution that you dilute with water, Aunt Fannies Hardwood Floor Cleaner is a highly recommended option that the manufacturer reports as being pH neutral. (Just remember that if you have waxed or oiled floors or engineered wood floors like my Hallmark wood floors in our old house, check the manufacturer’s instructions since they may require use of a specific cleaner to maintain your warranty)

My go-to cleaning duo for damp mopping hardwoods are Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner and {this O-Cedar spray mop}:

The spray mop has a refillable bottle that I fill with the Bona cleaner and it shoots a fine, even spray over the floor with a pull of the trigger near the handle (so there’s no bending over like there is if you’re spraying the handheld Bona spray bottle):

The microfiber mop heads are machine washable and they’re double sided so after one side gets dirty you can flip the entire mop head over and use the other side:

I had also heard amazing things about {this Spin Mop} for cleaning hardwood floors, tile, and other hard flooring so I recently gave it a try. The spin feature works really well! You simply stick the mop into the front well of the bucket and use the foot pump to make it spin which removes most of the water so your mop is damp, not wet:

I like that the microfiber mop head has a triangular shape that does a great job getting into corners and crevices:

For me the biggest negative is having the space to store it where it’s easy to grab. While I keep my spray mop in our laundry room closet, the spin mop takes up much more space so it’s relegated to our garage storage closet. The biggest pro of the spin mop is that it would be better to use than the spray mop in cleaning super dirty floors since you can rinse & wring out the mop frequently vs. the chore of changing the microfiber pads on the spray mop several times as they get dirty. The other pro is that it’s kinda fun to spin 😂.

How often should you damp mop clean your hardwoods? Recommendations vary between once a week to once a month depending upon whether you have kids & pets, how diligent you are with sweeping/vacuuming regularly, and whether you are a shoe-free household.

What About Steam Mops?

While there are several steam mops marketed for cleaning hardwood floors, steam cleaning hardwoods isn’t recommended by any of the major wood flooring associations. The concern is that the steam could penetrate the wood fibers and leave damaging residual moisture even when the top surface of the floor is dry.

That being said, the risk of damaged is minimized if your hardwoods are well sealed and don’t have cracks between the planks. And those who use steam mops on their hardwoods definitely rave about how well they clean. Personally, I’m not comfortable with using a steam mop on my hardwood floors but if you use one, just be sure to keep the steam setting on low and don’t linger on any one spot – keep your mop moving!

Is It OK to Use Vinegar to Clean Hardwood Floors?

Whether it’s ok to use vinegar to clean hardwood floors depends on who you ask! The National Wood Flooring Association specifically states that you should not use vinegar on wood flooring. The concern is that vinegar is acidic and that acidity can degrade the finish of your hardwood floors and leave them looking dull. Others swear by the use of vinegar and feel that if you dilute it heavily with water, they notice no dulling of their floors and that it’s a great “green” way to clean.

What type of vinegar should you use if you go this route? Distilled white vinegar is best:

A ratio of ½ cup vinegar to 1 gallon of warm water is the most recommended mix. Steer clear of “cleaning vinegar” that has a higher acidity.

Preventative Hardwood Floor Care

One of the best things you can do for your hardwood floors is to keep the dirt and debris from being tracked into your home in the first place. Keep area rugs, runners, or doormats in high traffic areas such as in front of your kitchen sink and at every entry door to help protect your hardwoods.

An indoor/outdoor rug like {this large indoor/outdoor rug} in our entryway or a Ruggable rug like one of {these} are great choices for an entryway since they’re easy to clean.

Entryway Sources:  Serena Smart Shades on entry doors  |  Capiz chandelier  |  Rug  |  Linen console  (also see {this similar console}|  White table lamp  |  30″ x 40″ Framed art print  |  Shallow wood bowl  |  Glass beads  |  Cube ottomans

Be careful of your choice of rug pads since some latex and rubber rug pads may imprint their pattern on your hardwoods (I learned this one the hard way in a previous home!).

To prevent scratches on your floors, place felt pads on the bottom of any furniture that sits on your hardwoods. Sticky felt pads like {these} work well for furniture pieces that stay in place but with chairs that are moved back and forth over your hardwood floors, the felt pads tend to shift and eventually fall off. Because of this, I prefer {these nail-in felt pads} for chair legs:

You simply take off the plastic tips that they typically nail into the bottom of chair legs and replace them with these felt pads:

If your chairs come with nothing on their feet, you would want to drill small holes for the nail-in felt pads before nailing them in to prevent any cracking or splitting. They take just a few minutes longer to put on than the stick-on type but it’s worth the extra time since you won’t have to mess with them again because they stay put.

Recoating vs. Refinishing

If you take great care of your hardwood floors, you can go decades between having them refinished. Hardwood floor refinishing involves sanding the floors down to remove the the top coat & stain as well as any gouges or scratches in the wood.

Then new coats of stain & a protective top coat are applied. It’s a fairly expensive process and one that can be pretty disruptive since you need to move all furniture, rugs, etc. off of the floors and not walk on them for a certain number of days. Check out my post on hardwood floor refinishing for the details of the process and cost info.

One thing a lot of people don’t realize is that if your hardwoods start to look dull and the top finish is worn, you can simply have your hardwood floors re-coated with new coats of finish instead of doing a full refinishing job. With re-coating, just the very top surface of your hardwoods is abraded and new coatings are applied. It restores the shine to your floors and helps protect them from damage too.

It’s a process that’s a lot cheaper and less time consuming than full refinishing and allows you to significantly increase the time between full hardwood floor refinishings. The general recommendation is to re-coat every 3-5 years but the time frame really depends on the traffic in your home, the quality of your top coat, and the care you give your hardwoods.

And with that, I hope I’ve answered all of your questions about how to clean hardwood floors! Want to get a few more cleaning tips? These are posts I think you’d like:

12 Best Deep Cleaning Tools I Wouldn’t Want to Be Without

How to Keep Your House Clean with Dogs

Laundry Stripping Recipe

XO,